Le Freak

by Nile Rodgers

  At the time, this was all too much for me to fully digest. I was frantically dressing, hydrating, and going over our second-half set list.

  Nard didn’t complain about feeling overly sick. He simply said, “Yo, I’m going to play the second half sitting down, if that’s cool?”

  “Of course that’s cool,” I said. Then he remembered we were doing some Chic numbers that were choreographed, so he said, “I’ll get up when we get to the parts that I have to stand for.” And with that, we hit the stage for the second half of the three-hour show. We played well, but I could sense a difference. Nard was playing on adrenaline, guts, willpower, and, of course, his uncanny musicality, which had bailed us out of countless close calls in the past. But he was running on empty. Somehow, though, we got through the rest of the show.

  We returned to our hotel and Nard said he was going to bed. I reminded him of the doctor’s orders, but he shrugged me off. He said he was fine—just tired. We were all tired—the show was a three-hour marathon—but I was hungry, so I had dinner with a Japanese friend named Masako. Before she and I left the hotel, I called Nard to check in on him:

  “Hello,” he answered in a gravelly voice.

  “Hey, man, I’m going out to eat, do you want me to bring you something back?”

  “No, it’s cool.”

  “You sure you don’t need anything?”

  “Everything’s all right. I just have to rest.”

  DURING THE NIGHT I was awakened suddenly from a nightmare and found myself on the floor. At the time, I thought an earthquake had thrown me out of the bed, but my friend was soundly sleeping. I woke her up. She hadn’t felt anything, she said. We checked CNN. Nothing. A few months earlier, I’d experienced the Northridge, California, earthquake and was terrified that I was about to have the earth snatched from under me again.

  It was 1:33 a.m. I was too afraid to sleep, so I convinced myself that I was rested enough to stay up until my early morning editing session. Nervously I rewound the nightmare:

  I was one of the last two people on earth. We were holding hands. Suddenly the other person started to rise from the ground as if filled with helium. I tried to hold on to him, but I couldn’t. I was afraid of being carried up into the clouds, afraid of heights even in my dreams, so I finally let go. He floated off, and all I could do was helplessly watch him fly away. I was completely alone.

  In the dream, I dropped back to earth. In real life, I fell out of the bed.

  I ended up falling back asleep, but was awakened by the telephone between 6 and 7 a.m.. “Mr. Edwards will not answer his wake-up call and the whole band is waiting for him in the lobby. They have to leave for the airport soon,” the hotel manager said. “What should we do, sir?”

  “Let the band leave,” I told him. “I’ll get him up. He’s directly across from me.” I knocked until my knuckles grew raw. No matter how hard, loud, or long I knocked, he refused to answer. I finally asked housekeeping to open his door.

  The housekeeper opened the door to Nard’s room and my eyes adjusted to darkness; the only light in the room was the flickering of his television. Nard’s feet hung off the end of the couch. He was lying on his side, with his hand behind his head, like he’d been watching television. His blood had pooled to the bottom of his feet, which were grotesquely swollen.

  I shook him vigorously. He was completely rigid, so when I shook his arm, his feet moved in the same motion. I screamed his name, thinking that this would really piss him off, and that he’d scream back, Muthafucka, I can hear you! Then we’d laugh and he’d hurry to the airport. But that didn’t happen. My mind refused to accept what was right in front of my eyes. He was dead. When I could no longer deny what I knew to be true, I touched his cheek with my fingertips. His body was the same temperature as the coffee table.

  I lost it. I cried hysterically. The housekeeper didn’t know what to do. The hotel staff called the police.

  As I mentioned, unexpected situations can often be a relapse trigger: The classic examples are divorce, job loss, sickness, and, of course, death. This was as unexpected as anything that had ever happened to me. Bernard had been my protector since we’d become friends some twenty-five years earlier. Now he was dead.

  The only thought that broke through my hysteria was, Now it’s your time to look out for him.

  A RUSH OF ACTIVITY ensued immediately after I discovered Bernard’s body. It was, to say the least, a complicated situation: An American had died in a hotel room while the president of the United States, Bill Clinton, and his entourage were staying next door; we were in Japan; the police and coroner had to do a complete investigation; the deceased was a musician in a country with a zero-tolerance drug policy; the Japanese don’t embalm their dead; the flight to New York is fifteen hours; you can ship dead bodies only with special permits and in containers that take time to acquire.

  There was an endless list of things requiring action that only I could attend to. And on top of all of that, I had to edit, mix, and deliver a TV show with a confirmed airdate.

  Nard and I had always subscribed to “the show must go on.” Ironically, had Bernard not been so committed to our age-old motto, he might be with us today.

  Once the medical examiner filled out the death certificate, he needed my account of events. In perfect English he told me, “From the state of rigor mortis, I estimate time of death to be between 1 and 2 a.m.”

  “Around the time of the earthquake?” I asked.

  “What earthquake?”

  I told him about my nightmare and falling out of bed. After carefully listening to my story, he changed estimated time of death from between 1 and 2 a.m. to time of death 1:33 a.m. Then he looked at me and said, “We did not have an earthquake. We have many earthquakes in Japan, and they are recorded very accurately. That was your friend leaving you. The time of death is 1:33 a.m., just like you said. Thank you for this information.”

  I did everything the police asked of me at the station to expedite returning Bernard’s body to his family. After I finished, they still wouldn’t take me back to my hotel. I figured that we couldn’t travel because Clinton was in town and they had the zone secured. Then the head detective took me to the garage. As I was about to get into my car, he said, “Please come over here and be with your friend.” I wasn’t sure what he meant, so I said, “Pardon me?”

  “Please come here and be with your friend,” the officer repeated while gesturing with his hand, “and stay as long as you want.” Instead of getting into the car, I went over toward where he was now standing.

  I walked into a small room that they’d converted into a makeshift temple.

  Bernard was in a coffin with a glass front, and he was dressed in a white kimono. The saddest day of my life was also one of the most beautiful.

  epilogue

  We Are Family

  MORE THAN FOURTEEN YEARS HAVE PASSED SINCE NARD’S DEATH. DEspite our ups and downs, I always knew my old partner had my back. When he died, I had no choice but to step up. I’d been warned that such a catastrophic event could be a trigger to drink again, but it turned out to be a trigger not to drink, to get it and keep it together. I’ve found great solace in finally taking care of myself and others.

  It’s been a busy decade, to say the least. Life has paid off pretty well, considering how poorly it started. Though my royalties have allowed me to maintain a comfortable lifestyle, I never really became a true “gentleman of leisure.” For me to be truly alive, I have to stay in the world of music.

  Over the past few years, I’ve been busier than ever. I’ve worked on more than a hundred projects, with such diverse artists as Bob Dylan, Britney Spears, Elton John, Dweezil Zappa, Joss Stone, Angélique Kidjo, and Steve Vai, among many others. Earlier this year I worked on an album called Olympia with Bryan Ferry, thus bringing me full circle to one of Chic’s original influences. I also expanded my range by composing my first musical, and founding a distribution company and record label called Sumthing, which specializes in
blockbuster video game soundtracks (primarily composed of classical music).

  You may find it ironic that a guy who was once tainted with the Disco Sucks scarlet letter is now furthering the reach of new traditional composers in the world of theater, film, and video games, but for me, it’s all part of the same artistic truth: A great hook is a great hook, whether it’s for “Le Freak” or Halo.

  ON SEPTEMBER 10, 2001, I took a United Airlines red-eye flight home from one of many Halo meetings at the Microsoft campus near Seattle. Hurricane Erin was just off the Atlantic coast, causing extreme turbulence as we entered New York’s airspace just before dawn the next morning. As we touched down, the captain said, “That’s some storm we got out there, folks. It looks like we just made it.”

  About an hour after I got home, my girlfriend Nancy was in the kitchen watching CNN. “You’ve got to see this,” she said. As I tried to wrap my mind around the smoldering hole in the World Trade Center’s North Tower, the second plane struck the South Tower.

  I stayed awake all day watching news updates. As the names of the dead were announced, I recognized that of an old friend: Berry Berenson. A model and actress turned photographer, she’d snapped my image many times. When I was named Billboard’s Number One Singles Producer of the Year, she shot the magazine’s full-length photo.

  By nightfall my phone was ringing off the hook with calls from concerned artists and friends from around the world. One friend suggested I use “We Are Family” to jump-start America’s healing process, in the tradition of “We Are the World.” It didn’t make sense to me, because Nard and I had written that song specifically for the group Sister Sledge as our take on their specific family dynamic. But the idea began to grow and everyone who heard it seemed to concur. After giving it a bit more thought, I called Tom Silverman, the head of Tommy Boy Records, and he agreed to finance it.

  We decided to record in L.A. and New York. In a matter of days, I had organized a diverse roster of over two hundred celebs, from Diana Ross, Patti LaBelle, Bernadette Peters, Luther Vandross, Joel Grey, and Eartha Kitt to Queen Latifah, Pink, the B-52’s, Jackson Browne, Mila Jovovich, Afrika Bambaataa, Rev Run of DMC, Mario, Matthew Modine, David Hasselhoff, the Pointer Sisters, Macaulay Culkin, and even Sister Sledge. We had legendary sports figures John McEnroe, Rebecca Lobo, Rod Gilbert, and at least three of Muhammad Ali’s daughters. But we also had emergency workers, too. We wanted to repay them in the best way we could, with music and a few hours of peace, love, and tranquility.

  When we gathered together in New York, at the same studio where the original Sister Sledge production had been recorded, it felt like the safest place on earth.

  After the New York session, the television host Montel Williams and I hopped on a flight bound for L.A. to record yet another group of bighearted people. When we boarded the flight, every crew member’s face was familiar to me, and mine to them. They were the same crew that I’d flown in with during Hurricane Erin, and this was their first flight since. We all hugged, laughed, and greeted each other as if we were long-lost family members just come home.

  During the recording, there were many memorable performances. Sophie B. Hawkins put a spin on the groove and started us off on hand drum. Queen Latifah followed with a pep-talk rap to the ensemble. Patti LaBelle hit a note so high it made all our heads spin, then Luther Vandross’s voice cracked when he went for a tricky riff—the first time I’d heard him hit a bad note in thirty years. Steve Van Zandt fired off a guitar solo in the breakdown section, and Diana Ross drove all the way cross-country during the no-fly period just to sing in the chorus.

  Filmmakers Danny Schechter and Spike Lee made a film called The Making and Meaning of “We Are Family,” capturing the beginning of the project, and how we eventually realized that we could build it beyond what had started out as a one-off. I called an old friend from Sesame Street, the television producer Christopher Cerf (whose father Bennett cofounded Random House). When I told him what we were doing, he said, “I’ve always wanted to do a charity music project.” So we wound up coproducing a children’s version of the song, starring more than 150 children’s TV characters.

  We showed the film at a special screening at the Sundance Film Festival, where we received a standing ovation for the music-video doc, and the children’s version was roadblocked (meaning it was broadcast in sync on all three top children’s TV networks) on March 11, 2002, six months after 9/11.

  AND SO WAS BORN the We Are Family Foundation. My team started small but performed big. Since then we’ve funded the building of seventeen schools in Africa, Central America, and Nepal, distributed over eighty thousand children’s DVDs, and brought first-run films and poetry slams to kids in hospitals. We’ve adopted thirteen-year-old New York Times bestselling author Mattie J. T. Stepanek’s “Peace is possible” message and developed an innovative year-round mentoring program called Three Dot Dash (• • • —), the Morse code symbol for the letter V, or what’s become known as the peace sign.

  Three Dot Dash, our chief program, now searches the world over for Global Teen Leaders who share Mattie’s vision of achievable peace, and whose successful programs are dedicated to the furtherance of basic human needs: water, food, health, safety, shelter, education, and the environment. Our original thirty Global Teen Leaders have already positively affected more than four million people with their programs.

  WHEN “WE ARE FAMILY” was originally composed for Sister Sledge, I never thought it would become a phrase that would have such great meaning in my own life. Last week the foundation had a huge celebration with friends, family, and supporters who flew in from all corners of the globe. It was one of the most life-affirming parties of my entire life. I was ecstatic.

  The next day, as I was leaving for a concert in Rome, I got a call from my doctor. He asked me to sit down. I told him, “I’m running late to the airport, so hold that thought until I get back.” He said, “We must talk now. You have an aggressive form of cancer and I need to see you right away to discuss your possible options.” I was stunned, but I had a job to do.

  When it comes to my life, I’m never at a loss for irony. This information had come less than ten hours after one of the most optimistic days of my life.

  Since getting sober back in ’94, I’ve reflected on all of my close encounters with the Grim Reaper and have learned to be truly grateful for the gift of life:

  Yesterday’s history,

  tomorrow’s a mystery,

  today’s a gift,

  that’s why they call it the present.

  That’s a slogan they used to recite at my old day program. Another was, “Live every day as if you think it’s your last, because one day you’ll be right!” I like to look at it like this: I’m going to die living—instead of live dying. So I went to Rome and, trust me, the show smoked!

  TODAY I GOT HOME after the routine (smoking) Roman gig. It’s a brisk early November morning and there isn’t a cloud in the sky. A few days ago, we had our first frost of the year. The cold chills my bones but it’s just what I need to keep me moving. I’m running late again and I need to hurry if I’m going to catch my plane. I’m heading out to Las Vegas to see Mom and the family. I know even without Big Bobby it’s still going to be a blast and, like always, completely dysfunctional and out of control.

  For years my family’s kept secrets from me, and in the end they were never really a big deal. This year I’m going to keep one from them—my cancer. I feel like I can’t share it with Mom because she’d worry too much. Maybe in the end it just might turn out not to be a big deal. And I plan to celebrate. Tomorrow is Thanksgiving Day.

  Here I am at five, sent away again: this time to an upstate camp with my cousin Herbert. We lived in the hood, but that didn’t stop my mother from dressing me like Little Lord Fauntleroy. Author’s collection

  In Los Angeles, the morning of the day I met Timothy Leary. Author’s collection

  My two grandmothers, Lenora and Goodie, in Watts, along with Goodie
’s dog, Champ. Author’s collection

  My grandmother Goodie and her man, Dan. Dan’s guitar was the first I handled, but he would’ve killed me if I ever tried to play it. Author’s collection

  Jazz great Billy Taylor was one of my influential early instructors. Michael Ochs Archives/Getty Images

  Beverly and I in L.A. in the mid-1970s. I was making music and money, but still on the humble. Author’s collection

  With my brothers Bunchy, Dax, and Bobby in the late 1970s. From the fly suit and the flyaway collar, it’s clear that the Chic checks were starting to come in. Author’s collection

  Grace Jones performing. She invited us to her show at Studio 54, but we were turned away. We consoled ourselves by writing “Le Freak,” the song that would change our lives. Bettmann/Corbis

  Bernard and I at the Power Station, the longtime home base for the Chic organization. Allan Tannenbaum

  James Andanson/Sygma/Corbis

  Chic at our peak—glamour, fashion, drama, and deep hidden meanings.

  Charlyn Zlotnik/Getty Images

  Sister Sledge—their We Are Family album may have been the best work Chic ever did. Kees Tabak/Sunshine/RETNA

  Bernard completing final preparations on his ’fro before a performance in Santa Monica in 1979. After that show we’d meet Diana Ross for the first time—and by then our exquisite crepe de chine suits had been sweated into “crap do shine.” Cheryl Hong

  Alfa Anderson prepping for the Santa Monica show, with Bernard probably talking shit. Cheryl Hong

  At the front of the tour bus in 1979, playing Scrabble with the band. Cheryl Hong